With the
structural wall re-framed and the
floor extended, the entry and walls to the bedroom are mostly framed out and we're almost ready to have the plasterboard (called Sheetrock in the US) replace the temporary plywood walls. It's because of these plywood walls that we call the bedroom "the Box" - since we
moved in, the "bedroom" has been enclosed by plywood, making it look like a "box". But today...that's going to change!
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| The re-framed structural wall and extended floor in-front of "the Box" |
The first thing that needs to be done is some additional minor re-framing of the
structural wall (also one of the bedroom walls) to create an opening where the new staircase will pass as it goes upto the
loft (2nd floor). This work was left until today because in order to do it, I'll need to remove all the plywood. Taking down the plywood was technically easy to do, but psychologically, this is a very big deal for us - we've been living with it for over a year, and this is the first step to returning to some level of normalcy.
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| Temporary plywood walls of "the Box" (photo on the left) - a few minutes later, the first few panels removed (on the right) |
With the plywood removed, I was able to easily cut out the opening and set a new wall-plate that will act as a structural anchor for the new staircase. This completed all the re-framing work and I could now begin re-sheathing the walls.
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| Cutting out studs to make an opening for the staircase |
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| The completed opening |
The re-sheathing of the bedroom began with adding plywood - but this time it's permanently attached to the exterior face of the structural wall. This plywood is being required by our official from Building Control (the equivalent of the Department of Buildings in NYC) to make the wall extra strong and stiff so that it acts as what's known structurally as a
diaphragm system. The entire wall is sheathed in structural plywood and fastened every few inches with screws. Later, this will be covered with plasterboard and painted - eventually it will be blended in and hidden.
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| The first piece of structural plywood added |
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| A few more pieces of plywood seen from inside the bedroom. The opening for the staircase is on the right side |
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| The completed plywood seen from outside the bedroom - the door opening is again visible. |
Once the plywood was completed, I shifted my attention to the other walls so as to hang the plasterboard. Before any plasterboard could be hung, the wall that separates the kitchen from the bedroom needed to have the final studs installed. These were quickly cut, placed and leveled.
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| The remaining studs installed at the side bedroom wall |
Once the studs were in place, it was finally time to start hanging the plasterboard. I hung one board on the side wall just to see how everything fit together, and then quickly insulated the structural wall before covering it with plasterboard. All the walls will be insulated to help with sound dampening and to retain heat within the bedroom during the winter.
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| The first piece of plasterboard in the bedroom! |
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| Insulating the structural wall. |
Hanging plasterboard is quite not as basic as it sounds. Building control requires us to maintain a
1 hour fire rating around the bedroom, which can be achieved with either 2 layers of regular 12.5mm (5/8") plasterboard or one layer of special fire-rated plasterboard - which in the UK is, funnily, colored pink (to make it obvious the board is rated). Here I decided to use the pink (rated) plasterboard along the structural wall (because it won't have much traffic/abuse) but two layers of regular board on all the other walls (so they are stronger and can take more abuse & traffic).
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| A few more boards up - the pink (fire-rated) plasterboard on the front wall with regular board on the side wall. |
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| Most of the plasterboard hung |
The plasterboard went up rather quickly - but by this point it was late, and I was getting tired after a 12-hour day of labor. But the plasterboard made a huge difference in how the room felt - the plywood is gone, and our bedroom is finally starting to feel like a real room rather than a plywood box!
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| End of the day - the bedroom re-sheathed in plasterboard |
